April 15, 2010

My Fiance and I popped into the bay for food before the TEDx Cardiff event and ended up eating in Mimosa.

Slightly Posh but pleasant venue. We had:

The Seafood Platter (Mackerel Pate, Anchovies, Cockles & Laverbread) – Very nice but a huge portion to start, three separate ramekins overflowing with food and a couple of huge slices of toasted granary bread. Lovely though !

Welsh Black Beef Burger – A hugefist-sized lump of herbed beef and onion with bacon and cheese in a home made bun with gigantic chips. I loved the burger but not the chips as I prefer american type fries.

Chicken, Perl wen and Cranberry Burger – A huge pile of succulent chicken breasts with creamy Perl Wen cheese and plenty of jammy cranberry sauce in a home made bun. with gigantic chips. Fantasic.

Contractual consent to allow monitoring of your email\Internet access is just that, Consent. This can be formally rescinded at any point. Your employer can take action against this (Disciuplinary etc.) but they CAN NOT continue to monitor your information.

“Fishing” for issues by looking through staff email\Internet traffic will not stand up in court as there needs to be a defined threat under investigation, to remove the possibility of entrapment.

Most companies contracts or Acceptable Use Policies define that a limited amount of personal use of company resources is allowed. With this in mind, if the company monitors your email\Internet Access they are knowingly potentially viewing personal information without direct consent. This can be viewed as a breach of privacy. This can be, and has been, legally stated as a breach of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act (the right to respect for private and family life)

None of this necessarily means you can get away with things by arguing the above points, but It does mean that Information Security \ HR have to tread very carefully whilst investigating staff mis-behaviour.

“the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is taking place in confidence. Disclosure of any documents without the agreement of all our ACTA negotiating partners would damage the United Kingdom’s international relations. This would harm our ability to protect, promote and secure an outcome in the UK’s interest, and the premature release of documents that are not agreed and not fully developed may also have a negative effect on the Government’s reputation.

Mr. Watson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills which Ministers are given access to UK position papers on negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. [311447]

Mr. Lammy: I am the Minister responsible-for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). I have no plans to meet with my ministerial colleagues to discuss the negotiation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). I will continue to discuss ACTA with officials whenever there are significant developments. I have discussed ACTA with EU partners in the past and will continue to do so when the opportunity arises.

These comments are edited out of the fulll discussion, but they are clear statements. I wont discuss it will UK MP’s, but will discuss with EU officials.

December 8, 2009

Since 2007, the U.S. State Department has been issuing high-tech “e-passports,” which contain computer chips carrying biometric data to prevent forgery. Unfortunately, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), getting one of these supersecure passports under false pretenses isn’t particularly difficult for anyone with even basic forgery skills.

A GAO investigator managed to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using fake names and fraudulent documents. In one case, he used the Social Security number of a man who had died in 1965. In another, he used the Social Security number of a fictitious 5-year-old child created for a previous investigation, along with an ID showing that he was 53 years old. The investigator then used one of the fake passports to buy a plane ticket, obtain a boarding pass, and make it through a security checkpoint at a major U.S. airport. (When presented with the results of the GAO investigation, the State Department agreed that there was a “major vulnerability” in the passport issuance process and agreed to study the matter.)

More than 70 countries have adopted the biometric passports, which officials describe as a revolution in immigration security. However, the GAO’s investigation proves that even the best technology can’t keep a country safe when the bureaucracy behind it fails.